The Scarborough Marsh. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

The Scarborough Town Council held a workshop on conservation on April 19. The Conservation Commission, Parks and Conservation Land Board, and the Scarborough Land Trust gave a presentation to the council on the town’s conservation and on achieving the 30 by 30 initiative. The 30 by 30 goal was set nationally by President Biden through an executive order to conserve 30 percent of the country’s land by 2030.

On a local level, the town said that it intends to meet this goal and maintain at least 30 percent and ideally more.

Dr. Noah Perlut, member of the Land Board and a professor at the University of New England, introduced four ideas for the town to keep in mind while conserving land: larger reserves are better, reserves should be diverse, keeping reserves contiguous, and maintaining and creating landscape linkages between reserves.

“Larger reserves allow all kinds of organisms, plants and animals, mobility. They allow them to make decisions. They allow them to change over time,” Perlut said. “But, importantly, it’s not only about the organisms in there in terms of wildlife and plants, it’s also about humans. One thing I hear all the time from our community is ‘I want longer hiker trails. I want to be able to walk greater distances. I want to be able to walk further into these lands.’ So larger parcels meet those dual objectives of supporting biodiversity and supporting our personal interests.

“Scarborough will never be Baxter State Park. That’s not what we’re talking about. But there is a big difference between a 20-acre parcel, the feel of being inside a 20-acre parcel versus the feel of being inside a 100-acre parcel. That really feels different in many ways.”

The second key idea is that of diversity. “(Diversity) is defined at a local level. We can’t use the word diversity the same way we would talk about diversity in Costa Rica or in Panama,” Perlut said. “We’re in Scarborough, Maine, and our diversity is very simple. Thinking about going from open water to upland forests. And what are the habitats and plants and animals that occur in between those places? And trying to think about conservation in a way where we’re not only conserving the upland forests and we’re not only conserving the tidal marshes, we are allowing space to go across that diversity of places, even though it’s not wildly diverse, it’s what’s here. And we do appreciate what’s here.”

The third component is that of contiguous conserved parcels. Parcels that are conserved that are adjacent or nearby “allow things to move,” Perlut said. “Things meaning us, things meaning water, things meaning plants and seeds, things meaning animals. It allows things to move when it’s contiguous and next to each other. And that’s not always so easy, particularly given roads.”

The fourth key idea is thinking about landscapes and neighboring towns. “We are surrounded by other towns that have conserved lands, that have farms,” said Perlut. “Are there ways to leverage these linkages from other places across the landscape?”

“I think (these key concepts) are really basic, but incredibly important as you’re thinking about land conservation,” Perlut said. “Sometime it’s so easy to get into the weeds of ‘Does it have this one species?’ or ‘Does it have this one thing that I’m looking for?’ and that gets so complicated and sometimes we need to back off and look at it from 10,000 feet of the big objectives.”

Perlut explained that conservation needs to be built around these goals, and not small random parcels of conserved land that do not support biodiversity or recreation.

The workshop also discussed many of the benefits of land conservation. These benefits included recreation, health benefits, tourism, preserved working lands such as Broadturn Farm, strengthened economic development, avoiding costs of community of services, enhancing home values, natural goods and services, managing water, improving air quality, and mitigating climate change.

A takeaway from the workshop was that the town needs to urgently start buying land now. The need for an open space plan was discussed, as well as upgrading ordinances and creating new ones, keeping track of progress, and integrating conservation principles in planning process.

It was noted that many partners will be needed, including both town, state, and federal levels, as well as private landowners.

It was noted that any landowner sitting on a few parcels can help if they wish. Small amounts of land conserved are important as well as larger areas, which are increasingly rare. Small parcels that are contiguous with larger conserved areas are especially valuable. There are mechanisms in place for land owners to get full market value for their land if they wish to conserve.

“This is without question a bold objective. Without question conserving (the remaining of 30 percent) of our town over the next six or seven years is a bold vision,” Perlut said. “But if you want to see bold, drive into The Downs right now. That was a bold plan. And look how quickly it’s been enacted by the landowners and the town working together. Right? We see that in our town. So to me that is a perfect example and evidence where Scarborough as a town can absolutely rally around bold objectives and bold plans that recreate the structure of who we are.”

“Just to say, ‘Oh, this is super complicated, bah, we can’t do it, it’s too hard’… Personally, I don’t buy it, I apologize. I love living in Scarborough. I love going on the Eastern Trail. I love going to our beaches. I love Fuller Farm and I would love to see it twice as big. I think we can do it.”